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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoKyle Robertson | DispatchA crew from the Columbus Department of Public Utilities works to repair a broken 24-inch waterline that burst under N. 4th Street on Monday. All service was restored by yesterday.

The temperature was minus 8 degrees with a wind chill of minus 29, facts Tom Spiert was brutally
aware of as he jumped out of his truck and sloshed through frigid water flooding Downtown streets
on Monday afternoon.

A usually calm Spiert speed-dialed his supervisor Mike Spriggs and in a panic yelled, “Call
anybody and everybody! We need everybody!”

“That was an unusual call for someone with his demeanor,” said Spriggs, a water maintenance
manager for the city’s utilities department. “But when I got there I could see why; it looked like
a war zone.”

City officials are still assessing why a 100-year-old pipe ruptured on N. 4th Street just before
afternoon rush hour on Monday, sending thousands of gallons of water gushing onto city streets.

The water came up with so much force from the 24-inch cast-iron pipe that it blew a hole in the
street.

Spiert and his six-member crew replaced the line yesterday afternoon, and water service returned
to normal Downtown. The men had been at work since 7 a.m. on Monday with few breaks from standing
in water in subzero temperatures, Spriggs said. Several crews, totaling 22 city utilities workers,
took part in the repair.

All lanes on N. 4th Street between Long and Gay streets should reopen by Thursday, police and
utilities officials said.

Subzero temperatures were a key factor in the break, but it’s likely the line already was
cracked because of its age, utilities officials said yesterday. Pipes can burst from constant
freezing and thawing, but breaks occur with no greater frequency in the winter than in the summer,
officials said.

Another leak was found yesterday at Main and High streets near Columbus Commons. Utilities
officials labeled that a “minor event” that will be fixed in the next few days.

As of yesterday, there were 38 waterline breaks in the city, said Laura Young Mohr, spokeswoman
for city utilities. The city had 46 leaks at this time last year. In each of the past two years,
crews have detected and fixed about 580 leaks in the city’s 3,600 miles of waterlines.

Engineers with the American Society of Civil Engineers said the city’s 100-year-old iron pipes
are ticking time bombs. They give Columbus and the rest of the state a C-minus grade for the
condition of its infrastructure.

Leaks in Columbus were more prevalent before 2011. That’s when the city began a $150 million
waterline-improvement project that is expected to last beyond 2016.

Monday’s leak was one of the largest in the city in decades, utilities crews said.

Stopping the leak was difficult because the devices crews use to detect underground shut-off
valves froze within minutes of exposure, Spriggs said.

At one point, officials from OhioHealth Grant Medical Center told Spiert’s crew they had about
30 minutes before critical patients would have to be relocated if water wasn’t restored.

Crews found the right valves to shut down the leak and restore pressure to the hospital and many
businesses Downtown before Grant’s patients had to be moved.

The damage from the break was minimal given the amount of water that poured out over several
hours; most of it rushed into sewer drains.

A few cars in the basement of a nearby parking garage were submerged and couldn’t be saved.

Some businesses, such as the Continental Realty building on the corner of Gay and 4th streets,
closed because they did not have water pressure.

Sue Cass, who lives in a condo across the street from Continental, said there was no damage to
her building and residents had water restored late Monday night.

“It’s kind of remarkable given the amount of water, but they were on it fast,” Cass said. “There
was one unit where the water was getting close to the owner’s front steps, but we were never asked
to evacuate.”

Mayor Michael B. Coleman lives in a condo a block away from the main break and was without water
until about 9:30 p.m. He visited the scene late Monday and said through his spokesman that he was “
astonished” by the “courageous actions of the city’s utility workers, firefighters and police
officers.”

In all, 29 firefighters and more than a dozen police officers blocked off streets and helped
evacuate more than 400 people from the section of N. 4th Street between Long and Gay streets.

Police Sgt. Rich Weiner said managing traffic around the break during rush hour was complicated,
but officers are trained to do so.

“It helped too that there weren’t as many people coming into Downtown for work that day, because
that street is a major artery to get out of the city,” he said.

Coleman said he plans to invite employees involved in the main-break cleanup to City Hall and
personally thank them for the quick response.